The website for Time magazine has a fairly detailed review article about the emerging space tourism industry. Writer Cathy Booth Thomas talks with a number of the leading companies, including Virgin Galactic, Armadillo Aerospace, and Benson Space Company, and also covers the more secretive Blue Origin; there’s also coverage if Bigelow Aerospace and developing spaceports, in particular Spaceport America in New Mexico. If you’ve been following the industry you won’t find that much new in this article, although the visit to Necker Island, Richard Branson’s private Caribbean resort where he gathered a number of his Founders late last year, is at the very least entertaining (including the obligatory discussion of sex in space, featuring Branson himself.)

CNET News.com, whose readers generally know John Carmack as the creator of the computer games Doom and Quake, interviews the Armadillo Aerospace founder about his space venture. Carmack talks about Armadillo’s participation in last month’s X Prize Cup, his idea for “vertical drag racing”, and future plans, with an eye in particular for going after the suborbital space tourism market.

There are a number of interesting comments by Carmack in the interview. He suggests that it’s possible Armadillo might one day work with Virgin:

But we think the first really significant business opportunity is with the suborbital space tourism market, taking people up to 100 kilometers on a rocket. Virgin Galactic has really proved that that market exists by taking in over $20 million of hard-cash deposits. But it is worth noting that they do not have any kind of an exclusive arrangement with Burt Rutan’s development company and that if somebody else comes up with a vehicle (with) worthwhile capability, they’ll be more than happy to work with other companies. So it’s not out of the question that we might wind up flying some of the Virgin passengers at some point.

He also believes that Scaled Composites’ SS1 and SS2 designs, while technically effective, may not be economical if ticket prices drop:

We have some idea of their expenses per flight, based on their engine technology and their operational cost. And they could certainly turn a pretty good profit at $200,000 per passenger, but it’s not likely that they could turn a good profit if the price pressure pushes it down to $50,000 or lower.

Carmack says that he’s “from the camp that says that spaceships really shouldn’t look very much like airplanes” and that the ideal rocket “looks like a flying fuel tank”, talking about some concepts for a simple suborbital vehicle he has in mind. And as for his vision for the future of space tourism:

I think that you’ll get at least 500 people that will pay the $200,000. And then I think the price will start to steadily go down when you get two vendors out there. They’ll start undercutting each other, but the early generation of ships won’t go down much below $100,000. (When the industry) builds a more cost-effective vehicle, it will start coming down more, and eventually, maybe 10 years from now, it will be a $10,000 ride located someplace like a quick ride from Vegas, where people can just go and do their mad-money thing, dropping $10,000 on a ride.

For this week’s issue of The Space Review I provide a summary of the just-completed X Prize Cup, with a particular emphasis on Armadillo’s attempt to win the Lunar Lander Challenge. If you’ve been reading this blog then you’re familar with most of the details in this article. However, I do try to put the events of the last few days in perspective:

Both the overall Cup and Armadillo’s efforts in the Lunar Lander Challenge illustrated one thing: the entrepreneurial “NewSpace” industry is in a particularly demanding phase of its development. The public’s expectations–and those of some in the industry–have risen because of past successes, like SpaceShipOne. Yes, most companies are still in the earliest phases of developing vehicles and related technologies, a phase prone to failures as new technologies and approaches are tried and often discarded. It’s a steep part of the learning curve, and even more difficult when it’s on public display.

Here’s a video from Armadillo Aerospace’s Saturday morning flight of Pixel at the X Prize Cup, when they landed partially off the pad. The video is a little crude and jumpy, but you can see most of the flight until Pixel disappears behind a tent shortly before landing.

The initial report on Pixel’s crash: Challenge rules prevented Armadillo from repairing the broken leg on the vehicle, so they instead “propped up” the leg and resecured one of the competition-mandated weights on it. However, when the rocket started to lift off the vehicle tilted again; the flight system detected this and initiated an auto shutdown, causing the vehicle to tip over and fall.

Armadillo Aerospace’s Pixel vehicle lifted off on its return trip for the level 1 Lunar Lander Challenge at about 1:35 pm MDT. However, the vehicle lost attitude control just seconds after liftoff and flipped on its side, crashing back to the pad at about a 90-degree angle. That’s it for Pixel and the Lunar Lander Challenge this year, unfortunately.

The X Prize Cup organizers just had one of the prize officials on the big screens here being interviewed. He was explaining about how Pixel landed right near the end of the pad (about 15-20 cm away from the edge, at it turned out), and had just started to discuss an issue with one of the vehicle’s leg–when the PA announcer interrupted to tell attendees that Anousheh Ansari would be available to sign autographs in another tent. (The PA announcer was almost drowned out by the groans of those of us in the media tent.)

An X Prize official did come in a moment later to state that one of the legs had snapped off on landing, but that the leg could be repaired and Pixel would fly again to compete the Level 1 challenge.

Armadillo Aerospace flew Pixel again just after 12:40 pm MDT, staying in the air for approximately 95 seconds. It appeared to land upright but right on the edge of the pad; while there was some initial concern regarding whether all the legs made it onto the pad, one official reports that all the legs are indeed on the pad. If so, this would appear to be a successful first leg of the competition.

A new window for an Armadillo Aerospace Lunar Lander Challenge level 1 attempt opened at 11:45 am MDT (about one hour earlier than previously reported). They’re towing Pixel to the starting pad right now and we should see a launch attempt probably within an hour so.

I spoke for a few minutes a little while ago with John Carmack after Armadillo brought Pixel back to the staging area. The vehicle landed with two legs on the pad and two off the pad, which caused it to tip over. Carmack said the problem is with a sluggish control system that makes it hard for him to steer the vehicle directly over the pad for landing. The vehicle is undamaged and they plan to essentially dust it off and try again in a window that will open around 12:45 pm MDT.